Spider Lily | | Demon Slayer: Tomioka Giyuu | |

4 |Demon Slayers

The pouch that could save her life.

A human, that does not know how to fight, is this brave and this kind toward someone she does not know?

"Giyuu... I think I might have been a little too straight forward and direct last night... but I really do not have a place to return to... Can I... go with you until I find a place?" She asks in hopefulness that there is a small chance he will takes her in.

"Before that, what relations do you have with those men?" Giyuu's short response gives her that small hope and brings a bright smile to her face.

"They bought me. But no one sold me."  Not knowing how to explain properly to Giyu, she stutters to find the right words. "I took... I mean they said I stole their stuffs... Technically I did, but I left the money behind. But then Kanekawa appears and bought me, she paid for the two items and said she bought me."

She grits her teeth. How could she have stuttered and made no sense like this? Something that is so easy to explain.  As if the past week's trauma had took its toll on her body and mental health.

But Giyuu understood her despite the missing information and the confusing explanation. Giyuu understood what she wanted to say.

"How much was it?"

Y/N quickly takes out two bills from under the kimono, making Giyuu glances away despite she is wearing a pant underneath. It's just extremely unusual for a woman to lift up her kimono the way she just did. At least, in this time.

She shows him the two bills that are able to convert to silver or gold at a bank. It makes Giyuu wonders if she does not know the currency. She is like a child... or someone not from here.

"Let's go." Giyuu nonchalantly walks past her.

"Go? Where?..." She looks at his back in confusion before picking up her feet.

"Back to town to pay your debt." Giyuu simply answers.

"But it won't just be these two bills, she wants me to--."

"I know." Giyuu cuts her off mid sentence. "But running away from a debt is not ethical."

Giyuu's words quiet her down. She knows that as well, a debt is still a debt. Running away from it just make she looks as bad as those people. But she didn't have a choice. But now with Giyuu being here, she feels more reassured, a strange feeling that he had given her despite them just meeting a few hours ago.

Giyuu leads Y/N through the wood and back to town like he had memorized this maze like the halls of his house. Y/N covers herself with her face as she walks through the town, sticking close to Giyuu. Giyu might be a resident here, but she isn't. She knows no one here. But in contrast to her, the young man walks nonchalantly despite a few pair of eyes looking their way. She also had noticed he had hid his sword away under his haori. It reminds her how carrying a sword is considered illegal in the era after the collection of swords in the Meiji period. It only makes her becomes more curious to know who Giyuu really is.

They stood in front of the brothel. Giyuu was able to figure out what brothel she stayed at after telling him the name of the owner, Kanekawa. It's another thing that makes her wonder if he too is a usual guest here. It isn't surprising if he is, after all he is a man in his 20s. Yet in another way, he does not give off that aura to her.

"You crawl yourself back here?" Kanekawa appears at the main lobby after the maid informed her that Y/N had returned with a man. "Already found a man?"

It's not unusual for maids to run away with a man once they find someone they can rely on. If they do return, it's usually with a rich man that can afford to buy them from Kanekawa. But the man standing beside Y/N here, does not look rich like the many other men that Kanekawa had seen. In fact, she got words from one of the bodyguards she sent out to chase after Y/N that the man in a two colored haori carries a sword around.